An automatic icemaker that continuously produces ice pieces, each haying a required shape is preferably utilized in facilities in, e.g., a café or a restaurant or any other kitchens. As shown in FIG. 8, in the automatic icemaker, a housing 10 having a heat-insulated structure formed into a required shape includes an ice storage house 14 having an ice storage room 12 storing a required quantity of ice pieces defined therein. A cabinet 16 accommodating an ice making mechanism (not shown) that produces ice pieces is arranged at a rear portion of an upper surface of the ice storage house 14, and the ice pieces produced by the ice making mechanism are sequentially ejected into the ice storage room 12 to be stored.
An ice discharge opening 10a for ice discharge, which is opened in an obliquely upward direction toward a front side, is opened at a position of the ice storage house 14 facing the front side of the cabinet 16. Further, a door body 18 that can open and close the ice discharge opening 10a is arranged on the housing 10 through a hinge device 20 at an upper end edge portion of the door body 18 so as to allow pivoting movement of the door body 18, and the door body 18 is configured to pivot between a closed position (a position indicated by a solid line in FIG. 8) at which the ice discharge opening 10a is closed and an open position (a position indicated by an alternate long and two short dashes line in FIG. 8) at which the ice discharge opening 10a is opened when a front end side is lifted up with the hinge device 20 functioning as a supporting point.
The door body 18 is held while being rested against a front surface of the cabinet 16 at the open position. That is, since the door body 18 is simply placed at the open position in such a manner that its gravity center is closer to the cabinet side apart from the supporting point of the hinge device 20, the door body 18 may be possibly pivoted to the closed position when the door body 18 moves away from the cabinet 16 due to vibration and others involved by an operation of the ice making mechanism. Therefore, an operator takes out the ice pieces with one hand while holding the door body 18 at the open position with the other hand, whereby an operation of taking out the ice pieces is complicated.
As a configuration that holds at the open position the door body that is arranged on the main body through the hinge device in the openable/closable manner, for example, Patent Document 1 disclose a configuration that an elastic member having a gear-like shape is arranged on a door body side, a bearing portion that meshes with the elastic member is arranged on a main body side, and the elastic member elastically meshes with the bearing portion at a position the door body is pivoted to, thereby holding the door body at the open position.